Violence soars in Afghanistan, insurgency expanding, Taliban has plenty of money from other Islamic countries- Reuters

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11/23/10, "Afghan violence soars, insurgency expanding," Reuters

"Violence in Afghanistan hit an all-time high in recent months as Western troops battled an increasingly sophisticated insurgency expanding across the country, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

• Nine years after the arrival of foreign forces, the Pentagon said all types of violent incidents in Afghanistan had increased from April through the end of September,
  
• up 300 percent from 2007, except for the use of roadside bombs.

The White House will reveal in coming weeks its review of the war a year after President Barack Obama unveiled a new strategy for the flagging, unpopular campaign in Afghanistan.

• Even as the Pentagon's latest congressionally mandated report painted a grim picture of the situation in Afghanistan, where

corruption undermines the fight against the Taliban and only halting, uneven improvements to Afghans' lives have been achieved, U.S. officials said there were signs of progress.

• Increased troop levels have bolstered security in some areas in the past six weeks, a period not captured in the twice-annual report, officials said, and foreign troops have managed to push Taliban violence back from cities and towns.

"But this progress is fragile -- this is a very tough fight," a senior State Department official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

• Yet some onlookers are sceptical even a far-off goal of putting Afghan forces in the lead in 2014 can be reached, as foreign forces struggle to train and fortify local police and soldiers and bring about a modicum of self-governance and growth in one of the world's poorest countries.

In its report, the Pentagon depicted a 'resilient' opponent in Afghanistan, where the Taliban enjoys a steady stream of funding at home and from other Islamic states. Insurgents have fanned out across the country.

"Despite the increase in (local and foreign forces') capabilities to counter insurgent attacks, the insurgents' tactics, techniques and procedures continue to evolve in sophistication," the report found.

U.S. QUESTIONS AFGHAN EFFORTS

The comments come a day before Afghan electoral officials were expected to reveal final results of September's parliamentary polls after complaints of fraud, another reminder of the

• deep-seated corruption gripping Afghanistan.

The Pentagon found that while the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai was making some efforts to combat corruption, there was a

• questionable commitment to ending impunity and prosecuting corrupt officials.

Officials said certain "predatory" corruption, like that among police, encouraged Afghans to join the Taliban.

• "Corruption continues to have a corrosive effect on (international) efforts in Afghanistan," the report found.

The military also said Iran continued to provide weapons and training to the Taliban and that their safe havens along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border remained an obstacle even as Pakistani military cooperation with NATO improved."
####

(I heard an emotional recitation on Batchelor's show Monday night from an American in Afghanistan who sought to convey our 'success' there. It's nice after 9 years to be able to go for a drive (as he described) and not get killed. Maybe they put away the IED's for awhile, fine. First, we're not fighting a war. We're running diversity training. This hell hole was never worth one American life. It's a huge Islamic country that stones people to death, has a large illiterate population, supports publicly whipping 11 year old girls for not having sex with 60 year old men, etc. This is just some business deals killing Americans for profit. The police are infiltrated (as in Mexico) the place is swimming in money. It's a joke. ed.)


via Lucianne.com

GOP House Republicans add seat #63, NY 25, upstate NY

.
""Taxes and regulations are so high in New York that my kids have to leave here to find a job," she said. "That's why I decided to run."

11/23/10, "Republican Buerkle wins NY US house seat after incumbent concedes," Bloomberg, Green

Democratic incumbent Dan Maffei conceded today to Republican challenger Ann Marie Buerkle in the race to represent New York’s 25th Congressional District, leaving three U.S. House seats undecided 21 days after Republicans won a majority in the chamber.

Buerkle, 59, beat Maffei, 42, after as many as 11,000 absentee ballots were counted by hand and polling officials verified returns on electronic voting machines used for the first time in a statewide election.

“Thanks especially to all the people, concerned citizens, who took time out of their busy lives to help stop what they see as a movement in the country away from the ideals of its founding,” Buerkle said in an e-mailed statement.

• She is an attorney for New York state and a former member of the Common Council in her hometown of Syracuse.

Maffei, elected in 2008 in the district that includes Syracuse, was trailing Buerkle by 567 votes as of Nov. 21, according to the Syracuse Post-Standard. A final tally in the race hasn’t been certified.

“The electorate may have changed tremendously from 2008 to 2010 in terms of who turned out to vote, but I kept my pledges to the people who elected me and I will forever be proud of that,” Maffei said in an e-mailed statement. He won with 55 percent of the vote two years ago. ...

Buerkle’s victory gives the Republicans eight seats in New York’s 29-seat House delegation, with one race still undecided. In the 1st Congressional District that covers the eastern end of Long Island, four-term Democratic Representative Tim Bishop and Republican challenger Randy Altschuler remain in a close race in which the lead has changed periodically as the vote count continues.

Democrats had controlled the state’s House delegation 27-2 following a special election in an upstate district a year ago."...

11/23, "The GOP House majority Grows," WSJ.com, Stephen Moore

"In one of the biggest election surprises of the year, Ann Marie Buerkle is officially the winner in New York's 25th congressional district. Ms. Buerkle was ahead by some 800 votes on Election Day, and after several thousand absentee ballots were finally counted her lead held up.

• Ms. Buerkle is a nurse and mother of six who had never sought political office. She knocked off Dan Maffei, a life long politician and a protégé of scandal-plagued Charlie Rangel.

"Almost no one saw this one coming," said GOP pollster John McLaughlin. "Ann Marie was definitely below the radar screen of most political experts."

One person who never saw it coming was Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, who had championed Mr. Maffei as the kind of new liberal Democrat America needs and the Northeast wants. "

• Absent a Republican wave of historic proportions, his seat now seems out of the GOP's reach," wrote Mr. Dionne back in September.

Ms. Buerkle, whose district includes Syracuse in upstate New York, will join more than 80 other freshman lawmakers. This class is dominated by men and women who, like Ms. Buerkle, have experience outside of law and politics. Her message throughout the campaign stuck a chord with many upstate New Yorkers:

• "Taxes and regulations are so high in New York that my kids have to leave here to find a job," she said. "That's why I decided to run."

Mr. Maffei got desperate in the final weeks of the campaign and used every trick in the liberal playbook to go after her. The lines of attack included global warming, stem cell research, Social Security privatization and her Sarah Palin connections. None of it worked. The Maffei campaign said yesterday that it may request a hand recount of the ballots, but the result is unlikely to change. Mr. Maffei thought he would win because the Republican Party had moved "so far to the right."

• In the end, Ms. Buerkle won because the Democrats had
  

• moved so far to the left."

.
via RedState.com

At least 4 deepwater drilling rigs have left American Gulf waters for Africa due to ongoing Obama moratorium, increasing our dependence on foreign oil

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9/17/10, "Transocean pulls another rig out of the Gulf of Mexico," Houston Business Journal

"So far, four rigs have been pulled from the Gulf due to the drilling ban"...and moved to Africa, 2 to Egypt, one to Nigeria, one to Republic of Congo:

• Transocean sent the Discoverers America to Egypt in late September due to the moratorium.
  

"Earlier this month (September), Transocean reported that its

• Marianas rig was bound for Nigeria, under contract by Italy's ENI, which is set to drill the Triton field.

In July, Houston-based Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. (NYSE: DO) moved its

• Ocean Confidence rig out of the Gulf of Mexico to the Republic of Congo and
  

• its Ocean Endeavor rig out of the Gulf to Egypt.

In its fleet report issued Tuesday, Transocean (NYSE: RIG) also said that it yanked two of its shallow-water rigs off the market because of

• a lack of a demand."

The court has ruled at least twice that Obama's moratorium is illegal and drilling must proceed. Why are people acting as if Salazar makes the final decision? It's not true.

11/23, FrontPage: "In the period during which Salazar had imposed a moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico,

• the Interior Secretary continued his brazen talk.

“We will only lift the moratorium when I, as Secretary of Interior, am comfortable that we have significantly reduced those risks. So the moratorium dragged on–hurting jobs, drilling, and tourism."

Al Gore says ethanol a bad idea he pushed in bid to be elected US president

• US ethanol industry will consume 41% of the US corn crop this year.

11/22/10, "US corn ethanol "was not a good policy"-Gore," Reuters

""Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was "not a good policy", weeks before tax credits are up for renewal.

• U.S. blending tax breaks for ethanol make it profitable for refiners to use the fuel even when it is more expensive than gasoline. The credits are up for renewal on Dec. 31.

Total U.S. ethanol subsidies reached $7.7 billion

last year according to the International Energy Industry, which said biofuels worldwide

• received more subsidies

• than any other form of renewable energy.

"It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for (U.S.) first generation ethanol," said Gore, speaking at a green energy business conference in Athens sponsored by Marfin Popular Bank.

• "First generation ethanol I think was a mistake. The energy conversion ratios are at best very small.

"It's hard once such a programme is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."

• He explained his own support for the original programme on his presidential ambitions.

"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa

• because I was about to run for president.""

via Climate Depot and Tom Nelson

UK limits immigration, to include relatives of current residents

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11/22/10, BBC, "UK government agrees on non-EU skilled migration cap"

"The government will cap the number of non-EU skilled migrants allowed to enter the UK at about 43,000 next year, down 13% on 2009, the BBC understands.

• Staff transferred by their companies from another country will be exempt if their salary is more than £40,000....

He added that consultation on proposals to cut the number of non-degree level students coming to the UK would be published soon but have not yet got cross-coalition agreement.

• And in the new year, ministers will produce proposals to
  

reduce the number of family members who can join immigrants already living in the UK.

The 43,000 cap from next April will be 13% lower than 2009's figure but the highest figure recommended by the independent migration advisory committee last week.

• It recommended that the number of migrant workers coming to the UK from outside the EU should be
  

• cut by between 13% and 25% next year.

However, it added that even this would contribute only 20% to the government's

• target of reducing UK immigration to "tens of thousands".

The other 80% cut would have to come from student and family migration, it added."...

.

GAO not convinced current airport X-rays would catch Christmas bomber, despite TSA Pistole statement 11/17

.
GAO 3/17/10: "While officials said
AITs performed as well as physical pat downs in
operational tests, it
remains unclear whether the AIT
would have detected
the weapon used in the
December 2009 incident
(the Christmas bomber)
based on the preliminary
information GAO
has received."...


TSA official John Pistole, 11/17/10
tells the US Senate,
the current "x-ray" machine
screening passengers in airports could
have detected the Christmas bomber's device,
while the GAO (in March 2010 statement above)
said that had not been made clear:


"Currently, the most effective technology for
 detecting
small threat items concealed on
passengers, such as explosives used by
Abdulmutallab,
is Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT). AIT safely
and effectively screens passengers for
both metallic and non-metallic threats,
including weapons and explosives, without physical
contact." (top of page 6)

   
via FireDogLake 11/17/10   

US Federal Reserve to slash growth forecasts, predict higher unemployment

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Update, full article: 11/23, BBC: "US Federal Reserve cuts growth forecast"

11/21/10, "Pessimistic Fed to slash growth forecasts," Financial Times, R. Harding in Washington

• "The US Federal Reserve will slash its growth forecasts and predict higher unemployment when it releases updated economic projections this week."...

via Drudge Report

EPA admits its rules would only reduce global temperature by 0.006 degrees in 90 years

.

"In rulemaking documents from April 2010, the EPA writes, “Based on the reanalysis the results for projected atmospheric CO2 concentrations are estimated to be reduced by an average of 2.9 ppm [parts per million] (previously 3.0 ppm),

• global mean temperature is estimated to by reduced by 0.006 to 0.0015 ˚C by 2100.”" ...(item in middle of article)
  

Oct. 6, 2010, "EPA estimates its greenhouse gas restrictions would reduce global temperature by no more than 0.006 of a degree in 90 years," CNS News, C. Neefus

"Tough new rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency restricting greenhouse gas emissions would reduce the global mean temperature by only 0.006 to 0.0015 of a degree Celsius by the year 2100, according to the EPA's analysis.

• As a side effect, these rules would “slow construction nationwide for years,” the EPA said in a June 3 statement.

Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee highlighted those findings in a report released last week.

The GOP minority report, issued last Wednesday (9/29) , said a series of proposed and partially implemented new regulations on

• industrial boilers, greenhouse gas emitters, and ozone levels will put
  

• over 800,000 jobs at risk with little environmental benefit.

The authors cite the EPA’s own staff to show that greenhouse gas regulations, which would require major sources of CO2 (carbon dioxide) to obtain permits and limit their output, could seriously harm the economy if implemented....

The EPA permits, under the Prevention of Significant Deterioration program, are already in place –

• but would be significantly expanded to include greenhouse gases.

“(D)uring this time, tens of thousands of sources each year would be prevented from constructing or modifying,” the EPA staff wrote.

• “In fact, it is reasonable to assume that many of those sources will be forced to abandon altogether plans to construct or modify. As a result, a literal application (of the permit requirement) to GHG (greenhouse gas) sources would
  

slow construction nationwide for years, with all of the adverse effects that this would have on economic development.”

Because of these concerns, the EPA decided to create the “tailoring rule,” which changes the thresholds for being considered a major source of carbon;

• they claim this will limit immediate 2011 exposure to the regulations to only 900 sources.

But Republicans on the Senate EPW committee said that

a federal court could strike the tailoring rule because it does not follow explicit guidelines set out for the process of issuing permits for pollutants in the Clean Air Act (CAA), which has its own threshold of 100-250 tons of CO2 equivalent a year.

“(T)he tailoring rule violates the plain language of the CAA. The Act defines ‘major sources’ as those that emit more than 100-250 tons per year of a regulated pollutant.

• In the tailoring rule, however, EPA arbitrarily changes those thresholds -- to 75,000 and 100,000 tons. For this reason,
  
• the rule likely won’t survive judicial scrutiny,” the staff wrote.

All of these complications stem from EPA’s desire to regulate mobile sources of greenhouse gases -- primarily automobiles. By issuing a finding

• last Spring that carbon dioxide is a danger to public health, the EPA is able to regulate mobile output of the gas;
  

but the ancillary effect is that stationary CO2 emitters -- factories, schools, office buildings -- are now subject to those Clean Air Act regulations as well.

But the benefit of regulating those mobile sources is, also by the EPA’s own estimations,

• as little as less than two thousandths of a degree in temperature reduction over a century.

In rulemaking documents from April 2010, the EPA writes, “Based on the reanalysis the results for projected atmospheric CO2 concentrations

• are estimated to be reduced by an average of 2.9 ppm [parts per million] (previously 3.0 ppm),
  

• global mean temperature is estimated to by reduced by 0.006 to 0.0015 ˚C by 2100.”"...

Rare earth smelting plant in China. This is why Communist China is "ahead" of us. We forfeited the rare earth business. Our environmental rules and wages made it too expensive to produce here. reuters photo, 11/21.

via Tom Nelson